The conference vote on Brexit took on surreal elements, being held on the same day that it was announced that the beginning of a fourth round of talks between the UK and the EU again broke up without agreement.

The British government’s position paper on the terms of its exit from the EU stresses the UK’s role as the second military power in NATO, to underline the implicit threat that it will withdraw military and defence co-operation with the bloc.

The Stoltenberg-May talks confirm that behind the official reasons given for the calling of a snap general election, one of its central aims is to further the UK’s war agenda in alliance with US imperialism.

The two rival groups organising overlapping rallies on February 20 offer no means to wage a struggle against Trump’s cabinet of billionaires and social reactionaries and May’s pack of baying Thatcherites.

Socialist Equality Party (UK) public meetings

The SEP advocated an active boycott of the referendum, arguing that the progressive and democratic unification of Europe can only be achieved through a revolutionary struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe.